Golden Afternoon

I sat on a bench at North Lake Park and looked out over the water. It was the kind of autumn afternoon that I loved. The summer heat was gone, but it was not yet too cool. The trees that rimmed the small lake were turning shades of yellow and orange here and there, but it was still too early to see the real color, which would peak a week or two from now.

I stretched my legs on the bench, closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I was at this park on a mellow, golden afternoon for a reason. I was stuck on a writing project and thought coming to this quiet place would help me work it out.

Near the shore, moving around the base of the cattails were several mallard ducks; the males with their iridescent green heads and the females a drabber brown. They were letting out a series of quacks and I didn’t know if it was because they were chatting back and forth to each other, or if they saw me there on the bench and didn’t like me being all that close. Either way, I needed to write something about birds, so these guys were the likely candidates.

This whole year has been a challenging one for me and I was able to cope with it by writing out my feelings. But now I felt the worst of the busyness and obligations were behind me and I wanted to brush away this veil of stress and sadness and see – really see – the beauty of my favorite month; to find balance again after being lopsided for so long.

I am not a trained poet, but I like to write poems and I am writing one for every odd day in October. Here is the one I wrote on this day, at this park:

“The Show, The Center”
(mallards at North Lake Park)
He is the show,
with his shiny green head,
white collar, handsome brown vest,
but he is never very far from her;
the drab one, the quiet one.

It is clear that she is the center,
the one who creates the family,
carries on the species.
He preens his beautiful feathers,
but he knows his place.

I closed my notebook and took another deep breath while sending out a little prayer of thanks for these ducks, the park, this life I have right here, right now. When my thoughts and my days seem flighty and out of control, along comes October with its blazing beauty to ground me and clear my vision.

A flock of geese flew overhead in their traditional “V” shape against a sky so blue it nearly hurt to look at it. Oblivious to that sight, the mallards continued to swim on the deep blue water of this tiny lake concerned only with themselves and perhaps that strange human who won’t go away. I’m reminded once again of an old folk song, based on Bible verses, that has brought me much comfort this year:

To everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under heaven.